John B. Hattendorf collection of John L. McCrea papers (MSC-356)

Biographical Note

John Livingstone McCrea (1891-1990), son of Dr. Henry and Lilly Livingstone McCrea, was born in Marlette, Michigan on 1891 May 29. He served in the U.S. Navy from 1915, following his graduation from the United States Naval Academy, until his retirement in 1953 as a vice admiral.

Admiral McCrea served in both world wars. During World War I, he served in the battleship New York, which was a unit of the Sixth Battle Squadron and operated with the British Grand Fleet in the North Sea throughout the last year of the war. In the interwar period, McCrea served on a series of different ships and attended the U.S. Naval War College graduating in 1924. He also worked in the Office of the Judge Advocate General, Navy Department, and was the aide to the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Harold R. Stark. He also served as naval secretary at the first meeting of the Combined Chiefs of Staff at the Arcadia Conference in December 1941.

At the start of World War II, he was appointed naval aide to the President Franklin D. Roosevelt. In this role, he accompanied the President to wartime conferences at Casablanca, Cairo and Tehran. He also established the White House Map Room and Shangri-La (current day Camp David). In August 1944, McCrea was promoted to the rank of rear admiral and assumed command of Cruiser Division ONE and a task force in the Aleutian waters in the North Pacific. Upon the death of President Roosevelt in April 1945, McCrea was recalled to Washington and served in various positions in the Navy Department, later rising to the rank of vice admiral.

McCrea retired from the Navy in 1953 and began work in the private sector. He worked as a vice president for client relations at John Hancock Life Insurance Company in Boston, retiring in 1966. Admiral John L. McCrea died on 1990 January 25 in Needham, Massachusetts.

Chronology